Clinton Goes to Iowa to Help Vilsack in Bid to Oust King

Christine Vilsack’s political pedigree comes with full campaign coffers and on-the-ground support from former President Bill Clinton, who is headlining a rally for her in Sioux City today. Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Steve King, a five-term Iowa
congressman with all the benefits of incumbency, is in a toss-up
race in a Republican district against an eighth-grade
schoolteacher terrified of public speaking.

There are two reasons for the close contest against his
Democratic opponent: The teacher is Christie Vilsack, Iowa’s
former first lady and wife of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack;
and King, an anti-tax Tea Party favorite, has made a name for
himself in the House by adopting extreme positions in opposing
abortion rights and by likening immigrants to bird dogs.

Vilsack’s political pedigree comes with full campaign
coffers and on-the-ground support from former President Bill
Clinton, who is headlining a rally for her in Sioux City today.

“The race is winnable for Christie Vilsack. That is huge
all by itself,” said Ann Selzer, a pollster and president of
Des Moines-based Selzer & Company. “Bill Clinton wouldn’t waste
his time. They think that it’s contested.”

The race is taking place in a redrawn district where a
victory may depend on King’s ability to woo independents.
Republican leaders have stepped in to protect King’s seat in a
fight replicated in districts in Illinois, Wisconsin and
Colorado where Tea Party-backed incumbents face competitive
challenges.

Tea-Party Precursor

“It is a test of whether candidate incumbents who are
identified with the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party are
losing some of their support,” said Steffen Schmidt, a
political science professor at Iowa State University in Ames.
“Even Republicans and certainly independents are now alarmed
that Tea Party-type Republicans are not as willing to compromise
and cut deals, that they are very ideological.”

King, 63, was the voice of the Tea Party anger before there
was an organized movement, Schmidt said in a telephone
interview. King is a founding member of the House’s Tea Party
caucus.

He has garnered national headlines for comparing the
immigration process to choosing “the pick of the litter” and
suggested an electric fence to deter illegal immigrants, saying
on the House floor that “we do this to livestock all the
time.”

King has sided with Representative Todd Akin, a Missouri
Republican running for the U.S. Senate, after his comment that
“legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancy and shouldn’t be a
reason for abortion rights.

‘Poster-Boy’ Status

While he defended Akin’s record as a lawmaker, King said he
“categorically” rejects “the so-called medical theory”
reflected in Akin’s statement.

“No one has a stronger pro-life record than I do,” King
said in a statement. “I believe sexual assault is a disgusting,
violent crime and those who commit these terrible acts should be
severely punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

King has acquired “poster-boy” status for his “hard
edge” on illegal immigration and anti-abortion rights, and his
re-election race may become a bellwether for such issues that
the Republican Party is “struggling with,” Schmidt said.

The race is rated as a toss-up by the website
RealClearPolitics. If Vilsack wins, she would be the first woman
to be elected to Congress from Iowa.

“We’re trying to make history here,” Vilsack said in an
Oct. 10 interview at a coffee shop in Sioux City the day after
the debate with King.

Political Money

Outside groups and congressional campaign committees have
spent at least $2.5 million on the race, according to data
compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks political money.

Even with her national profile and her husband by her side,
Vilsack wants to make the race about local issues. She has
portrayed King as holding extreme views that don’t represent
Iowans. “It embarrasses us because we are not like that in
Iowa,” Vilsack said in an interview.

King said Vilsack is running a “negative personal attack
campaign,” and “probably the most negative assault ever on a
sitting member of Congress in the state.”

King said he expected Vilsack would run against him once
his district was redrawn. The new fourth district, in northwest
Iowa, was Vilsack’s choice because she didn’t want to run
against Democrats in the two other districts where she had
lived, he said.

Vilsack’s Fundraising

He said he expects the race to be close because of
Vilsack’s ability to raise money outside the district and the
state.

“I’ve been through a lot of tests,” King said, recalling
that he started his construction business with a “negative net
worth” and the company, now owned by his eldest son, is in its
38th year. King has set out to prove that he can raise more
money from voters in the district. He’s been traveling the state
in his tan 2005 GMC Yukon, which is big enough to fit his signs,
he said in an interview at his campaign office in a strip
shopping center in Sioux City.

Iowa’s fourth congressional district has 180,512 registered
Republicans, 128,970 Democrats and 171,114 independents,
according to the most recent data from the Iowa secretary of
state’s website.

“It will be the independents that end up deciding the
race,” said Dennis Ryan, the treasurer of the district’s
Democratic Party. “This is the first time that he’s got a real
serious challenge because of the redistricting.”

Home-Turf Advantage

Still, King has another home-turf advantage: a record of
constituent service that is recognized even by some Democrats.

“Regardless of party, Steve King was always willing to
work with a constituent,” said Gregg Connell, a Democrat and
the former mayor of Shenandoah in King’s former district. “He
is very personable, very committed, believes in the issues that
he supports but he always had time for me as a small-town
mayor.”

Vilsack, who had already traveled the state as first lady,
said grassroots campaigning is “what I do best.” She said she
enjoys visiting a grocery-store deli counter and usually gets
invited to a table of people having their morning coffee. “I
call that coffee-shopping,” she says, adding that she’s allowed
to invent words because she’s an English teacher.

“I see the job very locally,” she said.

National Profile

Vilsack also has a national profile: she endorsed Senator
John Kerry for president in 2004 and delivered a prime-time
speech at the Democratic convention that year before Barack
Obama’s headline speech. The Vilsacks also received advice from
the Clintons during their time as Iowa’s first Democratic family
in more than three decades. Now, Clinton is helping out again.

Though she has debated King several times, Vilsack said she
had to overcome nervousness about speaking in front of crowds.
She recalled that her fifth-grade teacher made her practice
belting out her book reports because she was so soft-spoken.

“Believe me, that 10-year-old girl shows up every time I
have to go up there on the stage and have to debate,” she said.

Vilsack is the only Democratic opponent King agreed to
debate. “To me, it is an indication that he really thinks he
needs to pump up his visibility,” Schmidt said.